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Mediocrity – The Contradictory Phenomenon

Social Media is a brave world, where we get and consume our news and information. The upside is that we get to participate in this conversation as never before. We comment, we share, we tweet and retweet. Our favorite social networks have also ramped up the power of the opinion makers. Which is why it is good and bad at the same time. It’s also hard to conclude which side it weighs more, the good or the bad.

Social media is so powerful because we all get to give our opinions on it and that’s there for everyone to see and read and consume. It comes as no surprise that some issues get more attention than others, for example the Twitteratis asking and supporting the idea of war with Pakistan.

This good vs bad use of social media phenomenon is happening around the world. The amplification of information or information become news or news on social media becoming another news as it starts trending, is although a powerful tool for the people, but then people as a sum are not so rational.

Social Media is like a living echo chamber, where once a topic or a subject (mostly a person) starts trending, the voices in majority get to have the last word and the ones in the minority can do nothing. This defies the logic of justifying who is right. It’s like democracy gone wild, something like what’s happening to America. The one eyed queen is a hope for the people to save America from Trump, but then much better candidates like Jill Stein won’t win, even though they are more credible than the two front runners.

The extreme voice marginalizes the moderate voices. It certainly creates an environment of intolerance online. In America, 88% of millennials in America get news from social media.

What people tend to ignore is that their social media know how to keep them on its site. That’s how the algorithm works, which is evident on Facebook. It shows you what you want to see. It’s not an exaggeration to say that Facebook might even know what you like before you know what you like. You see where this is going?

It all depends on the news choices you make. What’s even more important is that social media users need to understand the world much better than what their social media profiles are show.

What to do?

Start with something that you like to read about and go to a site that’s extensively talking about it. For example, visit TheWire.in to read some unconventional and depth reporting. Or go to the caravanmagazine.com to check to really look into day to day stories more deeply. You need to learn more that news in shorts. That’s where the problem starts. What follows that are half baked opinions upon which we are ready to debate, because we think that we already know too much. This is not true, we just know too little, but too much of too little.